1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a telecommunications network and, in particular, to the provision of location-based call forwarding within a Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN).
2. Description of Related Art
With the advent and development of mobile telecommunications systems, telecommunications users are no longer physically bound to wireline terminals or fixed locations for telecommunications network communications. Using the added capabilities of roaming and interoffice handoffs, mobile subscribers may travel between multiple Public Land Mobile Networks (PLMNs) utilizing the same telephone number and the same mobile station to originate outgoing calls and to receive incoming calls. Thus, a mobile subscriber may access telecommunications service from multiple locations utilizing multiple service providers with any incurred fees being charged to a single subscription.
Additionally, parties originating a call do not necessarily have to know where the desired mobile subscriber is physically located in order to properly route and to establish a call connection. Data signals between visitor location registers (VLRs) and a home location register (HLR) automatically update and store subscriber information enabling the network to reroute incoming calls to the appropriate mobile switching center (MSC) serving the roaming mobile subscriber. Furthermore, regardless of which MSC is currently serving the mobile station, the VLR associated with the serving MSC communicates with the HLR assigned to the mobile station to retrieve the requisite subscriber data, including subscriber feature data and billing data, and provide uniform mobile service to the mobile station.
However, such uniformity in service is not always desirable for a subscriber. For example, such uniformity in service to a roaming mobile station is not desirable where a caller desires not so much to contact a particular mobile subscriber, but to contact a mobile subscriber if that mobile subscriber is within a certain geographical location. For example, where the mobile subscriber is a service provider (e.g., maintenance provider for office equipment) and the caller desires to initiate a service call, it is only desirable to reach the mobile subscriber when that mobile subscriber is in the caller's general geographical location. It provides the caller with no benefit to have his or her call forwarded to a maintenance person when that person is traveling outside his or her normal geographical area. Additionally, it is desirable for such a service provider to have only a single or very few service numbers available to its customers.
A much more desirable system would allow a mobile telecommunication system to forward to one of a predetermined set group of mobile stations based upon the location of mobile subscriber called.
Accordingly, there is a need for a mechanism to enable the mobile telecommunications network to provide service area call forwarding features to mobile subscribers, enabling mobile subscribers to maximize desired use of the feature and minimized unproductive use of such features.